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“Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

andrewchen.co

1–10 of 224 posts

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#2
"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up.

I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to much to whip up and to a trial run in a city.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#3
Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?"

Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of the market, the market is probably big enough to fit multiple nearly identical products at the same time and still have them all profitable.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#4
I searched a startup name in a seperate tab, came back and had an inescapable subscribe screen.

If your going to attempt to hold the rest of the article hostage pending a subscription to your newsletter, at least let me get interested first. This is both hostile and ineffective- and unsurprisingly is the most amusing part of the website

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#5

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

Nobody wants their hands to touch someone else's booger and cheeto dust coated peripherals, or vice-versa. There have been some times recently where I'd have paid money (but not much) to test drive computer hardware before buying it, but to some extent you can do that by purchasing from places with a liberal return policy.

Speaking of test drive, I'm in the market for a car and would love to be able to actually test drive some of the contenders without having pushy sales people all over me and in my voicemail for the next 2 months. Opportunity?

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#8

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

I suspect that, at least in places with decent internet, something like ShadowPC negates the need for such a service. I rent a top of the line gaming PC for ~$25/month, and run my games in the cloud.

With what I used to spend keeping a gaming rig upgraded, it doesn't even make sense not to rent something that's always going to be state of the art.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#10

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

Maybe not an opportunity for consoles per se (see cheeto comment), but maybe an opportunity for renting games from your neighbors. Heck, I could see this being extended online in quite a unique way. Cheaper renting some movie or game from someone who already owns it...
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